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For MySQL, the database primarily serves the application. The boss is the app developer who gets to tell the db (through the app) whether to treat zero dates as valid or not, or whether 2009-02-30 is a valid date. The app dev is king. This works well enough when there is only one application writing to any given relation (many readers is not a problem there because the writing app is king). But it doesn't work well as a data centralization and management solution. If you have 20 apps writing to the db and they may all be using different sql_mode settings, that is going to be a mess if they share relations.

For PostgreSQL, data is king. The applications consume managed data. The DBA is the one who gets to make the hard calls and every app developer gets to live with the decisions made. MySQL is thus a bottom app tier while PostgreSQL is a data management and centralization solution. They are *very different* and if you have 20 apps sharing the same relations, PostgreSQL will be far saner because multiple readers do not have to tolerate eachothers' sql_mode settings.

I am starting to plumb the depths of PostgreSQL object-relational capabilities and wow, these are incredible. Not quite as impressive as DB2 or Oracle but I suspect that once people start realizing how awesome this is, they will get needed facelifts.

Well typically the installation is run as a root user (it doesn't have to be) because of file permissions considerations. However, it runs as a non-root-user and will actually fail to start if you try to run as root.

However there is absolutely no reason you can't run initdb as any user you'd like. you can't set up the startup scripts as a non-root user though for obvious reasons.

There is a great deal to learn from history. We might not always be able to avoid the hard lessons, but the easy lessons (i.e. what has worked) is far more productive anyway. And I think technology changes things less than you might think.... The technology is different but the human needs are the same, and the human flaws too.....

The first is tracking fake documents back to their source. There your idea has some merit.

The other is noting that a document was printed on a laser printer anyway. For example, TSA agents look at all id's with a blue light, presumably looking for these dots. A magnifying glass, looking at microprint on, say, passports would get further than the yellow light, and would not be more expensive or time consuming. Indeed the same magnifying glass might even show these yellow dots. The current scheme only catches cheap fakes. Someone mounting a major counterfeiting operation for things like visas and passports would use better technology than that though.

The issue that this is a cheap way to identify fakes is very dangerous because it is fairly easy to circumvent.

Interesting how mortgages also tie people to jobs. They reduce geographic mobility and make it so if you cannot work for someone else, you cannot effectively buy a house without a guarantor who does.....

One thing our society has been amazingly good at doing is making people dependent on corporations for jobs.....

It is *hard* to be self-employed in the US, but it is the only way to be free.

Better yet, move into an apartment and rent your house out. That protects your ability to pay your mortgage while protecting your interest in your house.

The next thing to do is to figure out how to eat during that time. I suspect the minimum monthly budget is probably something like 250/person if you aren't in practice, and around $100/person if you are (and if you want to be happy with this food you had better be a good and creative cook! Yes, there are a million and a half ways to cook beans with a little meat and onions!).

Or, if that fails, and your only issue is explaining the issues to those who don't get it, work with someone who doesn't mind doing the explaining. In fact I would be happy to take over this part of your projects, for a fee of course;-)

The better idea would be for the counties to use eminent domain to take over the lines and phone switches and rent them back to the telcos!

Actually, this is not a bad idea. The telco's could then rent out the services to competing providers meaning an end to the monopoly and a need for such price controls. The original telco's could use their settlements to buy additional switches to stay in business, leasing the lines back from the counties.

Monopolies are not free markets. One can create a free market by nationalizing the natural monopoly portion and then renting out access on a RAND basis to all potential competitors on a per-subscriber basis.

einhverfr writes "Eugene Volokh has posted an interesting discussion of a bill that has been introduced in Arizona, which would tie public school educator conduct to the FCC standards or decency for radio and television. The bill is essentially a three strikes system, firing teachers if they violate FCC standards three times.

While the goal of the bill may seem reasonable, the details strike me as silly. What do you think?"Link to Original Source

All of these are unnecessary if you put the effort into designing a good diet around it.

Milk is problematic for a number of reasons though. These include:

Lactose intolerance varies substantially by ethnic group. Mongolians are almost never intolerant, nor are Scandinavians. On the other hand Italians and Chinese are. Requiring that kids drink milk is probably not a good thing in an ethnically diverse culture.

Also there are many groups which have prohibitions about milk. Jews, for example, if they keep kosher, are supposed to aggressively separate milk and dairy. These are not to be eaten in the same meal. They are not to be prepared using or served on the same utensils..... Insisting that children drink milk is in many cases very culturally insensitive too.